In this moment, for those of us that can, taking up space is an imperative.
I’ve always been encouraged to assimilate and fit in. Don’t be different if you can help it. Wear dresses instead of pants, carry a purse, don’t speak up when people say things that make you uncomfortable. This was well-intentioned advice. I grew up in a primarily white, but relatively liberal (at the time) small town in Pennsylvania where bullying or outright discrimination wasn’t a huge problem, but being different was a big deal.
I remember feeling afraid to take up space. As a Chinese immigrant family, people would see us and know we didn’t belong like everyone else, so a couple off-color jokes or comments here and there was only to be expected. It was our responsibility to make room for the ignorance of others. After all, we make up a tiny fraction of the population, so it was unreasonable to expect the majority to care about our problems and experiences. Me being queer would’ve forced me into an even tinier fraction and an untenable extra layer of complexity so, despite glaringly obvious signs in hindsight, acknowledging those feelings wasn’t an option. How I felt about girls didn’t matter because I also liked boys, which meant I could be “straight,” so why not stay in the safer lane?
I’ve heard many versions of this warped utilitarian logic since childhood, that it’s unreasonable to take up space as a tiny minority. Greedy even.
It took me until my mid-20s to come out as bisexual to anyone. As a baby bi in a straight-passing relationship, I felt I had no right to take up space, even within the LGBTQ community. I have never come out to my parents. This internalized logic led me to squeeze that entire facet of my life into one small shameful corner.
But as we are seeing play out on the legislative and political stage, niche issues can and do have a wider impact. For much of my life, while the right to abortion was a given, there was little mainstream attention paid to the struggles of women in other states and counties, disproportionately black and brown. And then Roe was overturned, disrupting reproductive care for millions of women. And even now, the Dobbs decision has deeply concerning implications for other rights like contraception access and same-sex and interracial marriage.
Unfortunately, “niche” issues often have concentric circles of negative impact on wider swaths of the population, and more examples seem to crop up every day: escalating bans on gender-affirming care, programs designed to mitigate discrimination being erased by anti-DEI efforts, overreaching book bans due to restrictions on so-called woke ideology.
To set the doomerism aside, this isn’t even the strongest argument against the “tiny minority” argument. And ultimately we shouldn’t need to prove harm for the majority for them to care about the minority.
No group’s fight for dignity is only about that group. It’s often only through the lens of a marginalized minority that overarching issues become clear. In Coqual’s research we often uncover blindspots through the lens of a non-majority perspective. In Strangers at Home, AAPI professionals explained to us how leadership styles that are more collaborative and humility-based were routinely overlooked in favor of a hyper individualistic and competitive mindset. In our Gender and Pride reports, we explored the costs of heteronormativity and traditional binary gender roles, not just for LGBTQ employees, but for everyone. In our Neuroinclusion report, we outlined the untapped skills and competencies of neurodivergent employees in a non-inclusive workplace. It’s often only through these othered perspectives that we can imagine and realize a better reality. The same inclusive behaviors that benefit marginalized communities also make an outsized difference for everyone.
Those findings tell us that the issues and experiences of the marginalized, the minority, not only deserve to be heard, but must be understood to expand our vision of progress. That process begins with small actions and the courage to take up space when others expect you to hide.
I only started to come out as bi because of the small examples set by others. Through our research I read countless daily experiences of queer resistance and joy. I had a manager who shared with me her own experiences as a bi woman growing up in an intolerant environment. Looking at her, I suddenly realized that I couldn’t imagine denying her experience or problems, and I couldn’t imagine any of my peers doing so either. So what was I hiding from in the closet from those people? I realized I’d made too much room for the ignorance of others, and have begun to make space beyond that shameful corner for my queerness, my Chinese-ness, and everything else that I am.
Even back then in my hometown, some people could take steps, literal steps in this case, towards an expanded reality. At my high school’s graduation, we were each given a robe color based on our gender. Red for girls, black for boys. The only out trans kid in my class, who was refused a black graduation robe that aligned with his identity, who was barred from walking at graduation because he didn’t have a robe, chose to walk in plainclothes anyway. This decision didn’t shift policy or affect measurable statistics, but it was a small act that pushed out the reality of what was possible for me.
As we approach Pride this weekend, for those of us that can, take up space and push out what’s possible, because now, it’s not just about being loud and proud, but refusing to disappear.
